Reworking/adding attack types and defenses against them

[Greywander]

I was thinking about a concept from an old thread I made a while back. Think of this as brainstorming for a big 5e overhaul or derivative system, rather than something that can be easily patched into 5e. Here's the relevant summary:

• Saving throws are converted to static defenses. Instead of the target rolling a saving throw, the attacker rolls an attack roll against the target's save.
• Some attacks can target multiple saves. You would only roll one attack roll, and generally you would just compare it to the higher save. Some spells or effects could allow partial effects if you only beat some of the saves. For example, Rime's Binding Ice could slow movement speed if you beat the target's DEX save and deal damage if you beat their CON save.
• AC no longer exists as a separate defense. Rather, protective items and effects such as armor, shields, or mystical talismans would provide a bonus to saves against specific types of attacks.

In order to more easily define which protective effects help against which attacks, it makes sense to add a new axis to attack types. So in addition to being a melee or ranged attack, and a weapon or spell attack, we now have a third dimension for defining how an attack is happening. Here's the categories I'm considering for this.

Strike

Getting struck with a solid (usually physical) object. Most weapon attacks fall here, and this also includes a number of spell effects, like shooting a magic icicle at someone, or whacking them with a Spiritual Weapon. Most of what is already an attack roll by vanilla 5e rules would fall under strikes.

Crush

Slow, steady pressure that crushes the target or rips them to pieces. Think of things like a giant constrictor snake. These wouldn't be as common, but could be staples for grapple-oriented characters. Basically, not a lot of crushing attacks currently exist, but we could add more of them. Rigid armor such as plate would help against crushes, while flexible armor like mail would do basically nothing. While most strikes would likely target DEX saves, crushes would probably target STR saves, although they're not hard locked to such.

Touch

When you only need to make physical contact to inflict the effect. Grapples and shoves would probably use this, as well as most spells that currently use a touch range. Disintegration effects and perhaps even lighting bolts could also fall under touch attacks (note that this isn't touch range, but just that the effect has to touch you). Effects that make you "slippery" would probably provide a bonus against touch attacks; I may add something like a "greased" condition. It is a little silly to think that dousing yourself in oil would make you more resistant to lightning strikes or help you slide off of a Sphere of Annihilation. We could break this apart to distinguish between attacks that require getting a firm grip on the target (e.g. grappling) and attacks that only require merely brushing them briefly (e.g. disintegration), but I don't think it's worth the added complexity.

Splash

A spray of some kind of fluid (liquid, gas, etc.) over an area. The fluid is able to flow around armor and into the gaps, so armor doesn't help much unless it's something like a hazmat suit; a shield, however, can block it. A lot of area effect spells would fall here, anything from Acid Splash to Fireball to Cone of Cold or Cloudkill, mundane explosives as well. Cloudkill might actually work better as a touch attack though.

That's about all I can think of as far as the way an attack is delivered. And keep in mind, "attack" doesn't necessarily mean "deals damage". Any time you target an unwilling creature, you'd be making an attack roll against one or more saves. Something like Hypnotic Pattern would be an attack (probably an AoE touch attack). While these would mostly determine what kind of armor is or isn't effective, while considering something like a protective talisman I realized that we might need more than just this. So we can add yet a fourth axis for determining the nature of an attack, particularly if it is supernatural in some way. (Though at this point I'm wondering if there's still value in distinguishing between weapon and spell attacks.)

Arcane (spell school)

Pretty self explanatory. As an example, something like a Ring of Mind Shielding might give resistance to psychic damage and +2 to saving throws against arcane (enchantment) and (illusion) attacks. This need not be limited to just spells, but rather any arcane effect. Anything that is considered an arcane attack will have an associated spell school.

Divine (alignment)

I'm not sure how practical this would be in play or how it would be used exactly. Do specific divine spells have specific alignments, or do all of a cleric's spells count as belonging to the alignment of their deity (or themselves)? I'm a bit leery on alignment anyway; if I was making an overhaul or spin-off system, I'd probably replace it with something else, though that "something else" could just be used instead. Regardless, I think this is something that should be included in some form, it's just a matter of hammering out the mechanics of it.

Elemental (element)

This one is a little weird just because of how most elemental effects can be tracked according to their damage type, making this seem redundant at first. But only at first. We can imagine that earth elemental effects might deal bludgeoning damage, but there would be a lot of other things that deal bludgeoning damage that aren't elemental in nature. Acid damage is sometimes associated with earth and sometimes with water, so the extra clarity can be helpful there, too. There's also the question of if, say, all fire is connected to elemental fire or not. We can already select according to damage type, so it makes sense to make elemental fire be a separate thing from regular fire. Demonic flames, for example, would not be elemental in nature.

While elemental attacks would largely be associated with one of the four cardinal elements, nothing actually prevents adding in other elements, e.g. adding a fifth element, or doing hybrid elements.

Supernatural (creature type)

So you know how fey are often weak to iron in fantasy? Let's take that idea and generalize it. Every creature type has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses, and those weaknesses can be exploited to protect yourself from those types of creatures. This could manifest in things such as garlic or a crucifix giving you bonuses against supernatural attacks from undead or fiends. "Supernatural", in this case, refers to innate magical abilities, things that 5e tends to be rather wishy washy on if they count as magical or not, though I think part of that is to balance effects that give blanket protection against anything magical. A dragon's breath weapon would be a supernatural (dragon) attack, for example. Not arcane, or divine, or even elemental. Well, maybe it would also count as elemental.

Technological (tech)

Generally only comes up if (a) your setting has ancient aliens or an ancient advanced civilization, or (b) your setting skews more towards renaissance and contemporary artificers are whipping out new gadgets. The "tech" here refers to how a technological thing functions. Does it use electricity? Magnetism? Quantum physics? Chemistry? It's a common trope in internet horror that monsters interfere with electronics, which is why we never get good photos of the monsters. In the same vein, there might be things that interfere with other types of technology, making them unreliable at best or completely nonfunctional at worst.

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Okay, so what does this look like once we put it all together? Well, let's say you cast Fireball. You would roll a ranged splash arcane (evocation) elemental (fire) spell attack against the DEX and CON saves of each creature caught in the radius. If you beat both the DEX and CON saves for a creature you deal full damage, half if you only beat one save, and no damage if you don't beat either save. One creature might have a protective charm that guards against elemental fire, giving them a bonus to their saves. Another might be wearing a Ring of Evocation Disruption, giving them a bonus as well. A third might have a shield that can block the effect, also getting a bonus. One creature might have a Ring of Spell Resistance that gives a bonus to CON saves against spell attacks. And so on.

Now, one thing to notice is that when it comes to defenses, a creature will be adding their ability mod, maybe proficiency, and maybe a bonus from an item or class feature or something. Meanwhile, when it comes to attacking, a creature will be adding their ability mod and usually proficiency, and maybe a magic item bonus. On the one hand, the targeted creature will have the advantage if they are proficient in the correct save and have a defensive item or feature to further boost their save. On the other hand, the attacker is the one with all of the control, being able to only choose attacks that add their proficiency, as well as choosing which enemy saves to target. I was concerned that weapons might need to get some boost to their hit rate, but I think maybe it's actually fine. We just need to make sure that every character is able to target at least two or three saves so they're not just screwed if an enemy is proficient in the one save they target.

Speaking of defensive items, to keep things manageable you would probably be able to apply only one bonus per save per attack. So if you have two items that both give a bonus to the same save against the same attack, you'd just use the bigger bonus. That way, it's less about stacking bonuses onto the same defense and more about covering as many different kinds attacks as you can.

Is there anything I'm missing here, either for the method of the attack or the nature of the attack? Do you think it's worth keeping the weapon/spell attack distinction, or should I do away with those? Anything else I should consider?

[Notafish]

I was thinking about a concept from an old thread I made a while back. Think of this as brainstorming for a big 5e overhaul or derivative system, rather than something that can be easily patched into 5e. Here's the relevant summary:

• Saving throws are converted to static defenses. Instead of the target rolling a saving throw, the attacker rolls an attack roll against the target's save.
• Some attacks can target multiple saves. You would only roll one attack roll, and generally you would just compare it to the higher save. Some spells or effects could allow partial effects if you only beat some of the saves. For example, Rime's Binding Ice could slow movement speed if you beat the target's DEX save and deal damage if you beat their CON save.
• AC no longer exists as a separate defense. Rather, protective items and effects such as armor, shields, or mystical talismans would provide a bonus to saves against specific types of attacks.

In order to more easily define which protective effects help against which attacks, it makes sense to add a new axis to attack types. So in addition to being a melee or ranged attack, and a weapon or spell attack, we now have a third dimension for defining how an attack is happening. Here's the categories I'm considering for this.

I like these concepts a lot - having certain attacks target multiple saves in particular is a neat route for having partial successes that isn't dependent on GM improv. I've also been playing around with a similar concept, but rooted in a desire to make odd-numbered attribute scores have a mechanical purpose (eg, a 13 in WIS means that something that provokes a fear save would now be a rolled value that needs to be 13 or higher)

With the system that you describe, I do wonder how most Strikes are avoided. Is this always a Dex save? Similar to Amechra in your other thread, I think having some flexibility on defense choices that are independent of enemy attacks would be helpful, partially to encourage more diversity in builds. For defense against weapon attacks, one option I've considered is giving characters the choice to block (strength-based) or dodge (dex-based) in most situations, but limiting options depending on context (only certain classes can block ranged attacks without a shield; you lose the option to dodge if grappled or restrained), while giving some effects based on the choice of defense (a successful melee block inflicts disadvantage on the attacker's next attack, for example)

[Greywander]

Ooh, I like the idea blocking using STR. In fact, this could be one of the main benefits of using a shield, although it should probably also give you a bonus. I can see blocking melee attacks using a weapon with no bonus, while a shield gives a bonus and allows blocking ranged attacks as well. Being unable to dodge if your speed is reduced to 0 makes sense. Perhaps a third option of tanking a hit as a CON save, where you still take half damage if even they miss but it lets you make an OA or something. Maybe you could also do bare-handed blocking, but also take half damage even on a miss. Perhaps some armor, such as plate, would allow tanking a hit without taking half damage on a miss. It does feel like each should have their own effect, though, giving you a reason to choose a different defense instead of just using the same one over and over. For example, tanking a hit could still count as being hit, even if all the damage is negated, and it would then trigger other on-hit effects.

Hmm, this almost feels like it's setting up a trinity of defensive methods. Blocking is STR-based, dodging is DEX-based, and tanking is CON-based. This naturally only applies to physical effects. Mental effects could follow a similar pattern. INT allows you to comprehend that you're in the midst of a mental attack and take pre-planned countermeasures, WIS allows you to simply wall off your mind and shrug off the effect, and CHA allows you to engage in mental gymnastics that obfuscate the mental attack and render it ineffectual. The thing is, the physical defenses all have certain requirements; you default to dodging with your DEX save, and trying to block without a weapon or shield, or tank without proper armor leaves you still suffering negative effects. Not sure how you'd do something along the same lines for mental defenses.

Anyway, this is something I'll have to put some more thought into.

[rel]

I'd want to make sure that all the saves are evenly represented, especially when it comes to mundane attack forms.
For example, the rogue or fighter should be able to feint and target charisma or wisdom with an attack.